Serum Biomarkers & Quality of Life in Children with TBI

Serum Biomarkers and Quality of Life in Children with Traumatic Brain Injury (BTBI)

Team leads: Dr Jamie Hutchison (Ontario), Professor Vicki Anderson (Victoria) Lead Organisations: Hospital for Sick Children (Ontario), Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (Victoria) TAC/ONF Joint Funding: $544,690 Start Date: 22 October 2010

Project Summary: Traumatic brain injury is the most common cause of death and acquired disabilities in children. Currently, health care providers are unable to accurately predict which children will recover well and which children will have residual medical, physical, cognitive and behavioural sequelae. To better plan support services for children and their families during their recovery and rehabilitation it is important to be able to predict, as early as possible, how the traumatic brain injury will affect their quality of life, both in the short- and long-term post injury. The research team recently discovered that specific proteins are released from the brain into the bloodstream following injury. They have developed new blood tests for these proteins which have the potential to improve treatments and accurately predict outcome. The aim of this study is to evaluate how helpful these blood tests can be in 240 children after TBI. Identifying links between these blood tests and the child’s quality of life post-injury, will allow clinicians to more accurately target children at risk of ongoing problems and provide appropriate treatments, when they are likely to be most effective, that is, in the early stages post-injury.

Publications: (as at Feb 2012)

Presentations: (as at Feb 2012)